Train
by jacedesbff
Summary: When Clint's ex, Bobbi Morse, comes back to town, it's like watching a train wreck. You can see it coming, but you can't do a thing to stop it. Can the train be derailed or will it continue to its inevitable conclusion? (Not Bobbi-friendly!)
1. Ultimatums

_This was inspired by a ficlet I read forever ago in which something similar happened at a party. I have absolutely no idea where I read it or who wrote it. I've never forgotten it, though, and it led to this. If you know what/where it is, please let me know as I would love to credit the author. :D__ I expect this to have three chapters, and it is my goal to update regularly. _

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"It's like watching a train wreck. You can see it coming, but you can't do a thing to stop it."

Natasha made no sign that she had heard Coulson as he sat down next to her and set his drink on the tall table. She simply continued to observe the train wreck in question.

Bobbi Morse trailed her finger down Clint's face, eliciting a sexy-as-hell grin from Natasha's partner. The noise from the S.H.I.E.L.D. New Year's Eve party made it impossible to hear what was being said, but the general idea was clear even from the other side of the room.

"He will see it, Natasha. He will see her for what she is."

Natasha snorted.

"He hasn't so far."

"It was the most committed relationship he's ever had, Natasha. He's very loyal. You know that."

"Yeah, well, the first time she left him, you had to scrape him off the floor. The second time, I was here to do the honors. Should we tag team this round?"

"Don't give him up on him, Natasha. He needs you."

"I'm his partner, Phil. Of course he needs me."

"You know what I mean."

Natasha shot Coulson a look that would have paralyzed a lesser man, but the handler just leaned back in that casual way he had.

"Clint is clearly an idiot, and you can pretend to yourself, but don't fool yourself that I don't know, Natasha."

Natasha turned her gaze back to the happy couple who looked to be about five minutes from heading to a more private location.

"He's my partner, Phil. That's who we are."

Phil sighed as Bobbi and Clint headed hand in hand for the door.

"It's a good thing, because he will no doubt need you very soon."

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As it so happened, Clint Barton was aware that Bobbi was using him to stroke her ego, that having a guy who would fall into bed with her every time she turned up made her feel strong, good about herself. He had progressed to the point, though, where he was okay with that. The sex really was that good. That, and...if he turned her down, it would really and truly be over.

"So, Clint." Bobbi made her statement an introduction as she trailed her fingers down his chest.

"Yeah?" he asked with a smile. He knew Bobbi didn't love him, certainly not like he had loved her, but his job was stressful and it was nice to pretend sometimes, for a little while.

"I'm thinking about moving back to New York, taking my name out of the deep cover pool."

"Seriously?" Clint's brow furrowed. "But you love undercover. It's why you left me – both times, actually." He raised his head a little to look down at her.

The curvy blonde sat up to lean on her elbows as she tilted her head at him.

"A girl has to grow up at some point, settle down, plant some roots."

Clint laughed.

"You've made it pretty clear how you feel about settling down, Bobbi. I got the message, okay? You don't need to do...whatever it is you're doing to get me to stay with you while you're around. I accept this for what it is."

Bobbi sat up, pulling the sheet with her and crossing her legs Indian-style.

"I want something permanent, Clint. I want, I don't know, I want something that lasts more than the length of a mission, something real, something I can trust. And I realized that the only time I had that was when I was with you." She looked down and pulled her knees up to her chest, clasping her arms around them. "I understand if it's too late, but...I wanted to let you know where my head was at. And see if, maybe, we could try again."

Clint sighed, fighting with himself. There had been a time when he would have given anything to hear Bobbi say this, but now... He wasn't sure he could ever trust her like that again. At the same time, had he ever really gotten over her? He honestly couldn't say.

"What about next time you get antsy? Next time you want to pull up those roots and try something new? What's to stop you? Clearly I'm not enough." And that was the crux of the matter – Bobbi had already shown that Clint wasn't enough to keep her around.

"Let's get married," she stated.

Clint's mouth fell open.

"What?" He recovered and sat up straight.

"I mean it, Clint. Marriage is permanent. It's commitment. It would be me committing to you – permanently."

There was a very loud silence as Clint looked intently at the blonde in front of him.

"You mean it."

"Yes. I mean it." Her smile blinded him.

"You would stay here. With me. Permanently. Give up deep undercover."

Bobbi cupped her hand to Clint's cheek.

"Yes. Yes. Yes. And yes."

Clint pulled her in for a searing kiss.

Some time later, the couple lay in the bed so tangled that it was hard to tell where one ended and the other began. Clint's fingers trailed up and down Bobbi's arm and he gently kissed her temple.

Bobbi took a breath as though she were about to speak, but then let it out, wordless.

"What?" Clint asked, and he brushed his lips over her temple again.

"There is one thing."

"What's that?"

Bobby leaned up on one elbow, her other hand on Clint's chest.

"You do know that your partner is in love with you, right?"

Clint stared at Bobbi, dumbfounded.

At his lack of response, Bobbi made a face and sat up.

"You really don't know, do you?"

Clint scooted up, his back resting against the headboard, now bearing a few more dents and scratches than it had at the beginning of the night.

"Natasha's my partner. We'd take a bullet for each other – we have, actually – but men and women can be partners without falling in love with each other."

"I'm sure they can," Bobbi sighed, "but this isn't one of those cases. Natasha Romanoff is in love with you, Clint. I don't know if anyone else knows it, and I don't care. Coulson probably does – he's Coulson. Everyone else is so afraid of the Black Widow, they probably don't know what to think. But trust me – I know. She loves you."

Clint grimaced, starting to get irritated.

"And what if she does? She's the best partner I've ever had – or could ever ask for. She's never made a pass at me. What difference does it make?"

Bobbi gripped the sheets in her fists.

"I'm sorry. Maybe I'm being insecure or something, but I can't have my husband going off to work every day to be with a woman who loves him."

Clint threw off the covers and got out of bed, reaching for his boxers and pulling them on.

"So what? You want me to stop being partners with Natasha?"

Bobbi's voice reflected the growing irritation in Clint's.

"If we're going to get married and I'm going to completely up-end my career, then yeah. I want you to find a new partner."

"Who, you?" Clint snapped, pulling a t-shirt on.

Bobbi sat up straighter, pulling the sheet tighter around her.

"What would be wrong with that? I'm a good agent."

"We tried that, Bobbi. You and I don't communicate well in the field."

That was true. On the two occasions they worked ops together, Bobbi had constantly demanded more information from Clint, second-guessing his observations. They agreed that for the good of their relationship, field work together wasn't an option, and they were both field agents.

"We could work on it. I could work on it! Come on, Clint. It's not that much to ask."

"The hell it's not!" Clint yelled, finally turning to fully face the woman in his bed. "You come home after breaking it off with me twice, ask me to marry you, and demand that I dump my partner, just because you snap your fingers?!"

Bobbi jumped out of bed, sheet swirling around her.

"Are you in love with her, too?"

"I've never thought about it, Bobbi! We're partners, not lovers! And for the record, she's never let me down. Never. Not when I brought her in, not when she up-ended her entire life, not in the field. Never."

"And I have let you down, is that it? Because I needed space, because I wasn't ready to settle down?"

"Yeah, you have. The only thing I've ever been able to depend on you for is to have my heart broken, my life ripped apart. Why would I give up the one thing in my life that works just because you don't like it?"

Bobbi froze, her locked with his.

"Well. If that's how you feel –"

"It is."

There was a pause.

"I should go."

"Yeah. I think you should."

Clint went into the bathroom and slammed the door, leaving Bobbi to dress and exit his apartment alone. He didn't come out until she was gone.

_To be continued_


	2. Shooting at Wall Bananas

When Clint's life got complicated, the archer went to the one place he had total control.

Natasha found her partner on the shooting range after one of the gun bunnies, a fan of hers oddly enough, called to tell her that something seemed off with Barton.

Sure enough, Clint was standing in the special archery section of the range obsessively shooting arrow after arrow. There were already a quiver's worth of arrows in the multiple bullseyes scattered around, Clint was working his way through another one, and he had three more full quivers standing by on the floor next to him.

Oh, yeah, something was definitely wrong.

"Barton, the last time you did this, it was after the child sex trafficking case. The time before that it was because Bobbi left. She just got in last night and you're here already? What the hell happened?"

Clint's arrow hit the wall.

"Did you just *miss*?"

"No. The targets are boring. There's a stain on the wall in the shape of a banana – I hit where the Chiquita sticker would be."

"Of course you did. Again, why are you here hitting wall bananas and scaring the range techs so much that they feel the need to call me?"

"Kealoha doesn't need much of an excuse to call you, Nat."

Natasha put her hand on her partner's arm, forcing him to lower his bow.

Clint took a stabilizing breath.

"She didn't leave me, not this time."

Natasha waited.

"She told me we should get married, but she would only do it if I dropped you as my partner. I told her no and we agreed that she should leave."

Clint looked up into Natasha's blank face, the one that he knew meant she was covering her emotions – hard.

"So I'm here," Clint waved at the range. "And Bobbi is probably off slandering both of our good names."

Natasha raised her eyebrows.

"She is of the opinion that you are in love with me."

Natasha's mask cracked for just a moment before she schooled her expression back into a blank mask. Clint continued.

"Yeah. And when I said you were the best partner I had ever had, and that I wouldn't toss you over for her, she accused me of being in love with you, too. I told her I'd never given it any thought and that you had never made a pass at me. She didn't care. It was you or her." And with that, Clint turned back to the range and pulled his bow back up.

"And you chose me."

Clint paused again and looked down without lowering his weapon.

"It was never a question, Tasha. The only person who didn't know that was Bobbi."

Natasha put her hand on Clint's arm again, this time in thanks rather than to stop him.

As she walked off, Clint stopped her.

"You better talk to Coulson. Bobbi's a vindictive bitch and she's going to blame you."

Natasha turned around, not bothering to hide her surprise this time.

Clint sighed.

"When you love someone, you love all of them, not just the nice parts. I always knew who she was. I just loved her, anyway."

"And now?"

"I haven't trusted her since she left the first time. I can't love someone I don't trust."

Natasha nodded.

"You keep doing your thing," she told Clint with a soft smile. "I'll talk to Coulson, and then we'll knock off early and I'll get you drunk."

Clint smiled at her in return, and she left to the sound of his arrows hitting their targets.

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"You were right."

Coulson looked up as Natasha practically danced into his office.

"Would you mind putting that in an e-mail and sending it to every employee at S.H.I.E.L.D.? Or you could put it on a plaque. Either would be fine."

Natasha smirked at her handler.

"Clint saw it. He saw her."

Coulson sat up straight.

"What?"

"She told him she would marry him if he found a new partner. He told her no."

"So...Clint chose you over Bobbi."

"Why, yes. Yes, he did," Natasha answered as she sat down with a grin.

"And how is Clint handling this turn of events?"

Natasha's smile faded.

"He's at the range with three quivers on standby. And he's doing that word vomit thing."

"The one he does when he's upset and you or I is around and he tell us everything with hardly any prompting."

"That's the one."

"So not well."

"Not so far, no, but I told him I would talk to you, then take him out to get hammered."

"Good plan. Want me to come?"

"Actually," Natasha said slowly. "Clint is of the opinion that Bobbi is a vindictive bitch who will now do everything she can to destroy our reputations."

"Is he now?"

"Apparently you have to love the whole person, not just the good parts."

This time it was Coulson's eyebrows that raised.

"So. Bobbi. Think you can help with that?" asked Natasha.

"Ya think?" answered Coulson.

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Several tequila shots and two rounds of karaoke later, Clint became somewhat emboldened.

"Are you in love with me?"

"How drunk are you?"

"Um, drunk enough that I probably won't remember your answer in the morning."

"Then, yes, I'm in love with you."

"Oh. Am I in love with you back?"

"Probably."

"Huh. We should do something about that."

"Works for me. Wanna wait until we're sober enough to make it last more than a minute a half?"

"Well, yeah...but then we're not gonna remember this conversation, and I won't know that you're in love with me and that I'm probably in love with you, and we won't be having sex at all, even if it is quick."

"I want good sex, Clint, not quick sex."

"Quick sex can be good."

"Yeah, for a guy."

"Okay...maybe that's true... Could we at least make out?"

"Sure, if I thought it would stop there."

"Come on, Tasha. Do you want to sleep with me or not?!"

"Yes! Okay? Yes! But I want to remember it!"

"Fine, fine. Be that way."

And sure enough, the next morning as Clint staggered from his bedroom to find Natasha in a similar state of misery on his couch, the previous night's drunken declarations of love had indeed been forgotten. So instead of pursuing anything related to the previous night's discussion, the two friends spent the better part of the day bemoaning their hungover states and watching The Price Is Right.

It was actually a pretty good morning.

_To be continued_


	3. Switching Tracks

I do believe this marks the first time I've ever used this particular cuss word in a fic, notably as I don't tend to use it under any circumstances. The circumstances insisted on it, though. :D This was fun to write - I hope you enjoy it!

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In the world of S.H.I.E.L.D., Coy Brunson was known as the Paperwork Ninja, the Paper Terrorist, and/or the person to whom Phil Coulson went when he had questions about paperwork. These skills plus her ability to keep her own counsel were responsible for the fact that for the last two years, Coy had been the personal assistant solely responsible for the insane amount of paperwork generated by Director Nick Fury. In this position, she had contact not only with every element of S.H.I.E.L.D., but with government agencies throughout the world.

Most people would know to stay on the good side of someone like Coy. Bobbi Morse was not most people. A year earlier, the blonde agent had requested a Lamborghini to help establish her cover as a wealthy heiress. She was given a Ferrari with the explanation that even at half the price the less expensive car could accomplish the same goal. Bobbi concluded that the decision had been made by Fury's paper queen (which was true). Unfortunately for Bobbi, on the day she vented to her friends at lunch and called Coy a fat cow, not only did one of the Paperwork Ninja's best friends hear and report back to the executive assistant, so did someone at her own table who liked Coy better than Bobbi. (All of which proved that adults, even those who work at S.H.I.E.L.D., never truly leave high school.)

Coy, being a ninja, did not actively set out to ruin Bobbi's life, although for the next year the agent's expense reports were reviewed with a fine tooth comb and rarely was she given the amount she initially requested. Rather Fury's assistant bid her time, confident that the opportunity to establish true dominance would arise.

Four days after Clint effectively threw her out of his apartment, Nick Fury called Bobbi Morse into his office and formally reprimanded her for behavior unbecoming an agent. The wayward spy had spent much of the previous few days telling everyone she could that Clint and Natasha were screwing each other and everyone in leadership, and that was why the two of them were so successful. Everyone heard about her accusations, and because Coulson had given key people a heads up as to possible behavior to expect from Clint's ex, word got back to Director Fury pretty quickly.

Such things result in paperwork.

When Coy Brunson called her best friend, Lizbeth Tuttle, to come up meet her for lunch, the clerical wizard remembered at the last minute an envelope that she needed to put in interoffice mail. So it was that S.H.I.E.L.D.'s best PR flak and unrepentant gossip (the former genius being why the latter character flaw was tolerated) arrived at her friend's desk, Lizbeth found an empty desk rather than Coy. On that desk was a closed folder labeled "Barbara Morse".

Within 24 hours, it seemed that every employee at the agency knew that Bobbi Morse had been reprimanded for being a scorned, bitter harpy. Within 48 hours, the disgraced spy abruptly accepted a deep cover assignment and left the country.

Whether or not Bobbi learned the lesson that secretaries rule the world and one should not piss them off is an excellent question to which the answer could only be guessed.

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Although the objects of her ire, Natasha and Clint were ignorant to the soap opera stylings of Bobbi Morse's life. Thirty-six hours after Bobbi left Clint's apartment, the partners left on assignment to Caracas, Venezuela. The mission was to gather intel on a particular wealthy community in the city. To that end, Natasha was to operate as a wealthy trophy wife on a two week vacation to Venezuela, attending as many parties and functions as possible.

At the best of times, Clint was a bit too talkative on comm. This was not the best of times, and Natasha was about ready to kill her partner with her thighs.

"Oh, my heavens," Natasha told the insipid Venezuelan party girl to whom she was talking, "if I miss any of the good dirt tonight, I swear I'll have to kill someone!"

"Oh, come on, Nat. You know you love me!" Clint laughed.

So far this evening, the man with the eyes in the sky had contemplated the likelihood of aliens in the universe and whether or not they were abducting humans, whether dogs or whales were smarter, and was now on to even stranger topics.

"The dog-faced girl was convinced that unicorns were real and that they could shit rainbows. Wait, would unicorns shit? I should say poop – unicorns wouldn't shit. So yeah, Marla full-on believed that unicorns went extinct because Noah forgot to put them on the ark."

It had been that way for two weeks and no level of threat from Natasha could curb the archer. While his partner had no doubt that Clint was just distracting himself from thinking about his ex-girlfriend, she still spent much of her free time devising forms of revenge. Fortunately, tonight was the final party she had to attend, and she would soon have the opportunity to implement her plans, one of which involved erasing Clint's iPod and replacing it with nothing but Justin Bieber and Carly Rae Jepsen.

"So I've been thinking about what Bobbi said when she accused me of being in love with you."

"Seriously, Tia, there's plenty of time for that!"

"I really hadn't given it any thought. When we first met, I was still hung up on the Queen Bitch. Then I was focused on you not killing me or anyone else and then on figuring out how to work with you as partners."

"I know, right?"

"But what if she was right? What if I got so angry at her asking me to drop you as my partner because I love you?"

"Oh, don't be silly!"

"No, really. Do I love you?"

"What difference does it make, _mi negra_?"

"Are you kidding?! It makes all the difference in the world! Tasha, are we in love with each other?"

"Oh, Tia, I had no idea you were so funny!"

"We are, aren't we? We're in love with each other! Oh, we are getting into this when you get back tonight."

"I can't wait – it sounds fabulous!"

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Later that night, Clint made his way to their new safe house to find Natasha already there. His partner was sitting on the couch facing the door, legs and arms crossed, staring at him. Had he any doubt before, Clint knew instantly he was serious trouble.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" he immediately launched into damage control as he set down his gear and headed towards her.

Still Natasha sat silent.

Clint knelt in front of her, his hands on her knees.

"We got all of the intel we needed, Tasha. I kept things interesting, that's all."

If anything, Natasha's expression grew darker.

"I've been stressed!"

Natasha delicately reached down, picked up Clint's hands and removed them from her person.

"Give me your iPod," she told him.

Clint's eyes widened.

"Come on, that's not –"

"NOW."

Her dejected partner reached into his pocket, pulled out the shiny black MP3 player and handed it to her. She pocketed it and then looked at him.

"Now isn't a good time for us to talk about love."

Clint blinked.

"Will tomorrow be better?"

Natasha gave him the look that deserved.

"You are in rebound mode, Barton, and I am not a rebound."

"No, you're not," he agreed. "Bobbi was!"

"What?" Natasha finally looked something besides irritated.

"Over the last few years, I've fallen in love with you. I didn't realize it, though, until Bobbi tried to make me give you up."

"Put that together in the car, did you?"

Natasha looked away and Clint put his hands back on her knees.

"This isn't a flash in the pan, Tasha. It's not a rebound. It's real, and we both know it. If you want to wait to act on it, I understand, and it's okay, because I'm not going anywhere."

Clint sat back on his heels without taking his hands off his partner, who sat there and looked at him.

After a few moments, Clint started to stand up, saying, "I'm going to get –"

Natasha grabbed Clint's shoulders, pulling his lips to hers and melting into the embrace.

It may be postulated that while attraction isn't a choice, love is. Accurate or not, as Clint's mouth trailed down Natasha's neck and her hands slid up under his shirt, the two of them very firmly acknowledged how much they loved each other, both to one another and to themselves.

Best. Night. Ever.

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_EIGHT MONTHS LATER_

"Unicorns are delicate, but their rainbows are deadly, Nat, I'm tellin' ya."

"I can't believe you're still going on about this."

"I can't believe we're on the helicarrier on our day off."

Natasha sighed. "Hey, at least when S.H.I.E.L.D. gives annual reviews, they don't kill you if you fail."

Clint shook his head. "I'm amazed the Soviet Union had any long term assets at all. Seriously. How did any of you survive long enough to gain actual experience?"

Natasha was about to reply when the two of them heard a familiar voice in the hallway.

"It was the world's stupidest assignment, I swear. I mean, it wasn't hard – socialite sent to get intel, but –" Bobbi cut off when she walked into the lounge and saw Clint sitting on the couch and Natasha lying there with her legs in Clint's lap.

There was a loaded pause.

"Oh, look," Bobbi shot cattily. "S.H.I.E.L.D.'s golden couple. Have you made it official yet? Gotten matching tattoos?"

"Funny," Natasha said, not moving from her comfortable position. "I didn't hear anything about you being a socialite."

"No," Clint chimed in. "From what I heard, you were sent in as a hooker."

Bobbi bristled and Natasha laughed.

"High-priced call girl, Clint!" Natasha clarified. "It's much classier. Especially on such a _stupid_ op."

"You don't know anything about it," Bobbi grit out.

"Well," Clint noted, "we know that if you try to smear our names again, you'll be drummed out of the agency. Right, sweetie?" He patted Natasha's leg.

"Right, honey," the ruthless spy affirmed.

Bobbi looked like she was about to jump the spy pair when her friend put a hand on the blonde's arm. Bobbi paused.

"This isn't over," the spy-slash-prostitute said in what was surely meant to be a threatening tone of voice, but which impressed Clint and Natasha not at all.

"Hell, yeah, it is," said Clint. "Thank all that is good and holy in the world."

His ex grimaced.

"Oh!" said Natasha. "You mean interaction between you and the two of us, not you and Clint's relationship! I recommend that you do consider this over. Because if you don't, we will destroy you once and for all." The Russian's angry look was actually quite terrifying. "Your call."

Bobbi opened her mouth only to be cut off as her friend dragged her out of the room.

Clint pulled Natasha into his lap.

"You are so hot when you're threatening people."

"It's my cross to bear," smiled Natasha as she leaned in to kiss the man she loved. She felt his grin in return.

/fin


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